toward a fiscal cliff. republicans offered president obama a proposal that retained the bush tax cuts for the wealthy, and now they say the ball is in the president's court. >> this week we made a good faith offer to avert the fiscal crisis. now we need a response from the white house. we can't sit here and negotiate with ourselves. >> both sides promise to cut trillions from government spending over the next decade, but the republicans insist they can do it without raising taxes on the rich. president obama insists that's a nonstarter. he shared his message with rich folks at the business round table. he told them they could handle paying more in taxes. >> let's allow higher rates to go up for the top 2%, that includes all of you, yes. but not in any way that will affect your spending, your lifestyles, or the economy in any significant way. >> business round table is a lobby group made up of some of the country's biggest ceos, ceos of some of the country's bigg gt companies. if you don't know what the fisc